Now we will texture! We will work
through the basic techniques necessary to
texture. We will texture with 3 texture maps
which you can download
here. But what you should do is make them
yourself by using programs like Illustrator,
PhotoShop, Paintshop Pro and even windows95's
Paint or any other drawing program you feel
comfortable with. I will show you the various
effects by using the same texture map which is
called mine-plateox2.jpg this is a common texture
found on the web(I don't know who made it, so I
apologize for not giving credits). The other
textures are for the sphere and a general
hullcolor for the mine. Extract the textures to
the 3dmaxs\map-directory (or not to loose
yourself in all the textures you will make in the
future) make a separate map in this directory
(like I did) and give this a relevant name, say
'mine'.
Ok lets begin by preparing our shapes
for texturing. We must apply mapping
coordinates. If you have been paying attention
during the 2 tutorials you will know that in
the first tutorial I stressed that you check
the Mapping Coordinates Square whenever you
created a shape. In this tutorial I didn't do
that, why because now you will have to apply
the UVW-Map modifier, so the texture will
display correctly. Of course you guessed it, I
did this on purpose. To explain UVW, this is
the equivalent to XYZ only for textures. Ok
enough talk select the middle of the mine and
go to the Modify-tab select UVW-map. It is set
on Planar as default, change this to Box. The
default is set to stretch the UVW-map to fit
the shape automatically, but to be sure you can
press the fit-button (figure 15).
Now you should have something that looks like
figure 16.
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figure 16
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figure 20
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Repeat the exact same thing for
the orange-shape. Same for the spheres and the
lights. For the console we will make a Planar
type. Pay attention that the alignment is
correct(you can change this by selecting the
X,Y or Z above the Fit button. For the spheres
and the lights we want them to be aligned so we
have a square from the top(you would wrap the
texture on it from the top down. For the
console do the same so the rectangle is around
the console. For all the shapes(except the
orange-shape) pressing the UVW-Map modifier
places everything the way we want it to
be!
Select the middle part of the
mine and go to the material editor. Do this
by pressing Tools in the menu and select
Material editor or select the Material
editor-button (you may have to scroll to see
it). As you can see I have set SHIFT+M to
allow to call upon the material editor, you
can do this in the preference menu (I will
not go into that here) (figure
17).
Ok a lot of sub-menu's will be
available through the Material Editor. It's
actually very easy but it may be overwhelming
so take it slow if you can't keep up. Press
the first sphere. Change the Shading to
Metal. Change the Shinness and Shinness
Strength to 15 and 27 (figure
18). Now scroll the entire menu down
until you see a + followed with Maps if this
is not open press on the Maps-button. Press
the Diffuse line on None and a menu will
appear allowing you to use different prepared
texture-effects. We will use the Bitmap
option, press once and press Ok (or
double-click Bitmap, figure
19). A new menu will appear and all we
have to do is press the blank Bitmap button.
A regular windows screen appears in which you
have to select the Mine-Hullcolor.jpg-File,
look for it where you placed it and
select.
To return to the maps-section
press the go to parent-button  . Ok repeat the same thing for
the Shinness-section only use the
Mine-plateox2.jpg-File. Now to show some more
effects for the mine. Return to the
Maps-section move over the Shinness line and
above the file-designation PRESS AND HOLD AND
DRAG straight down to the Shinness Strength
(a arrow with a box appears). Release when
above the empty (none) section. A screen will
appear asking for Copy, Reference and
Instance choose copy. You will see that you
now have another effect for the texture.
Change the value (100) for the Shinness
Strength to 50. Once more drag this
mine-plateox2-file to the bump line, leave
the value at 30. Ok eventually you have
something like figure 20.
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Now the only thing left to do is to
assign this material to the middle shape
(remember we selected it in advance, if you
forgot don't worry simply drag the material
editor to the side of the screen, select the
middle shape and return to the Material Editor)
we do this by pressing the Assign button(in red
in the picture above). If things are dazzling in
front of you take a short break and read this
part again, and familiarize yourself with the
various menu's.
We still have a few more materials to
create so select the second sphere in the
Material Editor. Repeat the same steps only use
the Mine-Top-file now (still use the
Mine-Plateox2 for the rest) and now rotate this
with 22,5 degrees to get it just between the
cutouts in the shape (figure 21).
Ok assign this material to the two spheres. We
still need 3 more materials. Let's continue
with the lights. No just wait before we do this
it's time to discuss the real hard things of
modeling DECISIONS. As these are lights the
will be illuminated but do we also need to wear
them by applying the Mine-Plateox2-file? How
would this be in real space? I for one don't
know. So do what you think looks best. For now
(to keep it simple) we won't use the
Mine-plateox2 for the lights.
Ok select both light-shapes and go to
the Material Editor, select the third material.
Change the Shading to metal click on the
diffuse color and make it red or type in the
values at the RGB-section. Change the Shinness,
Strength and Illumination to 15, 27 and 100
(figure 22).
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Figure 22
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Ok now we can make the
orange-material. We will to this by selecting the
first material(for the middle-piece) press and
hold and drag to the 4th sphere(material) in the
material editor(press OK). Now we must rename
this material as we have copied it(if we don't we
use a double material and we will have a problem
assigning them to the shapes). Now remove the
diffuse-file by dragging a 'none' over it or
clear the check box in front of
it.
Change the RGB-color of the diffuse to
255,120,30 or any other orange you like and
assign the material to the orange shape (figure
23). If you think this doesn't match the
color in the Mine-Top.jpg file I agree. If you
want to use this color make a texture-file with
a small part of orange similar to the
Mine-Hullcolor file and use this. Now we only
need to do the console. If you wish you can
make a texture-file for this too, but I leave
that to you. I just apply a color with the
Mine-Plateox2-file. I won't explain this one
it's a combination of what we've done
before(more of the same). Just copy the orange
one and change the name and color and assign.
Now you can close the material editor, the mine
is complete.
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Ok we have done everything for now
I believe. I will leave you with an easy way to
make stars so you have something of a scene. Go
to the material editor select the 6th sphere (by
the way you can change this to a box or cylinder
by pressing the right-upper small sphere button).
Go to the diffuse map and instead of selecting
bitmap as we did last time, select Noise. Change
to Turbulence, size 0,01 and high=0,6 low=0,35
and levels=1,0. While changing these values
rename the map-name to stars. The values can be
changed to your personal preferences just keep in
mind how space looks and the size should be not
much bigger than I have it here, just experiment
a bit if you feel these stars are incorrect. But
I think the give a pretty good starfield. If you
have the program Universe you can make a file and
use it here. Only then choose bitmap instead of
noise and apply the image (figure
24).
Now go to the Render-menu and select
Environment. Press the None button (figure 25).
Change to Mtl Editor and select diffuse: stars
(noise) and press Ok (figure 26).
MAX will jump to instance and press ok. Ok now
you have a complete mine and some stars. In the
first tutorial I told you how to render so
rotate the perspective as you please and
render. Keep in mind that we have not set up
any lights and the lighting is MAX-default. If
you found the lights, you're free to experiment
(there in the create tab beside the geometry
and shapes). Here is a small rendering I
did.
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Looks pretty nice for a mine, or not? I
hope yours looks the same? Note the various effects
of shinness (strength) and bump being realised with
only one texture!
If you have any question feel free to ask me!
Send mail to
cooper@scifi-art.com, or contact me at ICQ on
number 27906797.
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